End Table, Half blind dove tails on cureved drawe face

[alex grams]

I am going through the design for an pair of end tables, and have some construction questions. See the attached pictures for my general design.

I have done bent laminations for table skirts, but yet to do a bent lamination drawer face. I would like to do half blind dovetails on the drawer joint corners, but really have no idea how to approach that on a bent face. I can handcut through dovetails fine, but have not tried with handcut half blind dovetails. I would think bent laminates for skirts/drawer faces would be the way to go, with doing the side skirts from a different/cheaper core wood while the drawer face will be bent laminations of only the main wood (in this case, Koa) that way any end grain for the dovetails will be the same as the face grain of the wood.

Thoughts on how to approach this? I have the PC omnijig, and I suppose I could make a jig to hold the drawer face and route into it for half blinds, but that would be dicey, and with an expensive drawer face if i messed it up.

Also, this design would be tough to do mortises/tenon into the legs at the odd angles. Any suggestions on how to cut those? Thanks again in advance. I do not have a mortiser though to set up the odd angles.

Thanks in advance.

[Jamie Buxton]

When I do joinery on bent lamination, I generally find that it is good to make a fixture that clamps to the bent piece. It has flat surfaces on it that I can use to guide a router or a dovetail jig or whatever. Once you have that, the joinery gets away from being dicey.

[Jamie Buxton]

One way to do the leg-to-apron joint is this... You make the apron to be one piece that covers 300 degrees or whatever that is. The legs just butt-glue on to the face of the apron -- no joinery really. There's a nice big glue surface, which should do just fine.

I'd make the apron first, and probably even glue it to the top. Then I'd measure and cut the mating surfaces on the legs. (Ya never quite know where a bent lamination is going to end up. )

[Jeff Hallam]

If you search the FWW magazine index you will find these issues which may have some good info for you. Here is the LINK. Use search term "curved" and then scroll down to the Dovetails / Drawers subjects.

[Frank Drew]

I'd make the apron first, and probably even glue it to the top.

If the top was solid?

[Jamie Buxton]

If the top was solid?

Ah, you're right. If it is a solid top, it needs a more flexible fastening scheme.

Thinking of that, I'd orient the top's grain direction so that it goes directly across the drawer opening, not at 45 degrees as shown in the sketch. That top is going to be what keeps the drawer opening the same.

[Bob Abbott]

I've attached a couple pictures of something I did with similar problems. Regarding the dovetails, I punted and simply attached a curved apron drawer front to a straight drawer box. For the leg attachment I made internal corner blocks and glued and screwed the apron pieces to the blocks and screwed the legs to the corner block using lag bolts and threaded inserts. This allowed easy disassembly for shipping across country. I didn't have a picture showing the corner blocks very well but you can see them in the upper right corner of the 2nd picture.

[mike holden]

Alex,
Do a partial lamination, cut your dovetails through, finish the laminations = half blind dovetails.
That is the hard way.
If you can do through dovetails by hand, then you *CAN* do half blind dovetails by hand. Yes you can!
It would be the simplest way to do this.
Mike

[Michael Kaplan]

if you plane a small "flat" on the inside of the face at the two outer sides of the front you give yourself a flat flace for layout and eliminate the potential gap that would be left if you didn't angle the basel of the tails. That sounds confusing, but I knew exactly what I meant!
Regarding the mortice and tenons. You can :a) cut the joinery in the stock before you shape them, while they are still rectangles,
b) shape them, work from full size templates and use router jigs to secure your piece and/or router in the appropriate locations. Is that helpful?
Michael

[Greg Jurrens]

These drawers were made by laminating the front and then planing flats on the ends that are the same width as the drawer side. Next I cut a regular through dovetail. I finished up by laminating 2 additional layers plus the finish veneer to the drawer front. Making a half blind dovetail in a laminated front in the conventional way is very difficult.